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Less than a week after reporting his 82-year-old grandmother as missing on Jan. 30, 2015, Vestal police say accused murder defendant Kenneth Weber offered to take investigators to the place where he allegedly disposed of her body.

After a two-day search, the body of Saundra Stabler was found off a back road in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.

The grim discovery, after initial searches and inquiries proved fruitless, arose while Weber was being questioned at the Vestal police station Feb. 3, 2015, Vestal police Lt. Chris Streno testified Friday during a pretrial hearing in Broome County Court. Weber was in the midst of drug withdrawal, Streno said, and he had just been arrested on a misdemeanor petit larceny charge earlier that day.

During Weber's interview with police, he allegedly stated, "Get me off dope sick; I'll tell you where she is."

Saundra Stabler(Photo: Photo Provided)

Weber, 31, is scheduled to stand trial June 5 on a felony charge of second-degree murder in connection with Stabler's death. He remains held in the Broome County jail and could face a maximum penalty of 25 years to life in state prison, if convicted.

During a pretrial hearing Friday in front of Judge Richard Northrup, the prosecution and defense clashed over whether police properly gained information that helped in charging Weber.

Although more details about law enforcement's efforts to close the case were revealed in court, testimony only touched on a few aspects of their investigative efforts, and Northrup is expected to decide at a later date whether certain testimony or evidence should be suppressed.

Weber admitted to being with his grandmother when she died, when questioned by police in February 2015, according to Streno's testimony Friday. The two lived together on Ideal Terrace in Vestal.

"He said he was at the top of the stairs with her, he had a seizure, she couldn't hold him up and they tumbled down the stairs," Streno testified. "When he came to, she wasn't breathing."

Weber then wrapped her body in a rug and disposed of her body, according to police. Later, police say, he called the Vestal police station around 5:45 p.m. Jan. 30, 2015, to report her missing.

Instead, Butler said, police dangled the idea of medical treatment as a "carrot" in order to get incriminating information from Weber.

Streno testified Weber asked for some form of medical attention at the time of that February 2015 interview, but as police determined there was no urgency in his reported symptoms, he asked officers to give him $100 and take him somewhere to buy illegal drugs.

Police had recently learned Weber had history of abusing prescription drugs and he was also using heroin, Streno testifed, and there were no indications he was experiencing anything more than discomfort due to withdrawal. Buying drugs was out of the question, Streno said, and Weber declined suboxone — a drug used to treat opiate addiction.

At that point, Streno said, Weber then offered to take police to find Stabler's body.

They drove onto Route 367 in Susquehanna County, Streno said, and at one point stopped because Weber suddenly remembered hearing water flowing near where he left Stabler's body. During a return trip two days later, Stabler was found in the area.

Defendant called police

For Vestal police, the case began as an attempt to check on the welfare of Stabler, then a mission to piece together a timeline to find her.

A distraught Weber called police Jan. 30, 2015, out of concern for her whereabouts, according to courtroom testimony Friday from Vestal police Officer Jared Fiacco.

Prosecutor Ben Bergman played a recording of that call aloud in court during Friday's hearing.

"My grandmother left the other day; we got into an argument, she left with one of her friends to go to dinner. I was drunk, I don't remember," Weber told the officer on the phone. "I haven't heard from her in 24 hours ... I'm scared; I don't know where my grandma is."

According to Fiacco, police later learned there had been an "ongoing issue" with Weber borrowing money from Stabler. She also had not been seen at a church group meeting that she regularly attended, Fiacco said.

Police searched the inside of Stabler's home, but found no trace of her, Fiacco said Friday.

Butler argued Friday that police lacked any legal basis to enter and search the house that evening: Weber's uncle had allowed them inside, but he did not live there, and he had just told officers Stabler was not there when he visited earlier that day.

The defense argued that any information police gained due to those initial search efforts should be suppressed from Weber's trial, calling it "fruit of the poisonous tree."

Butler asked Fiacco, "Why do you go to the one place you know she's not?"

The officer said it was all part of conducting a thorough investigation for anyone who might be missing, especially an elderly person with health problems.

Fiacco testified, "We're going to make sure ... we've eliminated the possibility a person is not at that location."

At the time, Fiacco added, there were no indications of a criminal incident and Weber was not being treated as a suspect.